Petroleum exploration and production typically emphasizes maximizing reservoir production in a safe and efficient manner. This can include employing enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques, such as thermal injection, gas injection and chemical injection, to assist in extracting hydrocarbons from oil and gas reservoirs. These and other techniques for maximizing reservoir production in a safe and efficient manner typical rely on accurate assessments of reservoir properties to determine its potential for petroleum production, as well as the appropriate techniques for maximizing petroleum production petroleum from the reservoir. Total organic carbon (TOC) content, for example, is indicative of a rock's ability to produce hydrocarbons and, thus, can be indicative of a reservoir's potential for petroleum production. Unfortunately, TOC and other reservoir properties can be difficult to ascertain. For example, TOC may be measured by combusting pulverizing samples of rock to generate quantities of carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide that are indicative of the TOC in the sample. Although such a combustion based technique may provide a direct estimation of TOC in rock samples extracted from a reservoir, it may not be able to provide estimation of TOC, or other reservoir properties, in-situ. That is, for example, to determine reservoir properties such as TOC at different depths in a wellbore, a well operator may have extract core samples at the different depths, and subject the samples to the combustion technique or another form of direct assessment to determine the TOC content or other reservoir properties.